When students come to follow art lessons, they’re always getting a first free lesson. Most of them stay for a year, some of them much longer. Not often it happens that adults and children just don’t show up after that first class. I always ask them why. Once there was a girl who answered: ‘I thought there would be a real studio!’

Well I have a real studio, I keep saying. Especially when I am teaching, we have a room in the house that used to be a bedroom. Even my stepchildren are sleeping in a smaller room! But I know what that kid means and however I wish to have a REAL studio, there are many things you can do when you don’t have that oppurtunity!

When the students are working here, that room is mine. But since my partner and me are working on the online painting classes, he needs a working space as well. So, when I don’t have students, I let him work in the studio. Seemed to be very fair, as he’s working for our project, isn’t it?

Yes! It’s just that I don’t have a space to work myself. So, when the weather is good enough, I prefer working in the garden or on location anyway. It’s really great to feel the sun on my body and have natural sunlight on my paintings.

Stones and tins of paint can protect your work from a breeze.

Today I was working on some flower studies for our next online workshop which will be about flower fields. In the middle of my session dark clouds came up and I had to flee into the house. I needed to take care of my art pieces before the rain would come and had to get all my stuff to ‘my’ studio upstairs.

I’m sharing with you a few tips if you’re having a flexible studio too:

  • keep your stuff organized! If you don’t have your own studio and you have to remove your art supplies quickly, you can take it easily
  • make sure there’s always a place in the house where you can let your paintings dry. This can even be on the wall, upon an easel or on a table
  • Use plastic to protect your table or floor. If you work in the living room, you want to keep that space clean and neat!
  • if you are working in a room where also somebody else is working, make sure you have clear rules about when to interrupt, ask questions and have conversations. You might need to concentrate on your work and rather have a chat when you’re drinking your coffee together. A perfect way to work without getting distracted is using headphones and playing your favorite music or listen to a podcast
  • and don’t forget: be glad with what you have. A flexible studio means you are a flexible person; you are able to work anywhere! πŸ™‚

For now, I have to deal with this challenge of being a flexible person most of the time, but I keep searching for a nice place with a lot of windows, where I can have my own working flow and where I can start at any moment where I want, cause everything’s ready!